How to delete ALL highlighted text in pdf

Forum|Forum|9 years ago
June 30, 2016
5 replies
109849 views

I have a PDF that has over a thousand pages worth of highlighted text. When I open up the comments section, I can see all of the highlighted comments but I cannot select all the comments at once - I can only select the highlighted comments page by page. I am currently running reader DC and I recall in earlier versions being able to select all the comments and deleting them all at once. Can I still do that in reader DC or do I have to go page by page selecting all the comments and deleting them? Any help would be greatly appreciated - thanks in advance!

Correct answer stefanoo8122271

Hi, you cannot do this in Adobe, and even if you found a way literally every page will have different way in which you can do it that’ll is not applicable to the next page containing highlights. Save yourself a lot of time and stress. Simply Convert/Export the PDF document to a Word document and within Word remove the highlights and then print the document back to a pdf document. Simple 😊

R

rinatb15376727

New Participant

After some trial and error, I finally cracked it. Here's the trick that worked:

Go to Tools > Comments in your PDF editor.

In the right-hand sidebar, locate the list of comments.

Click on the text of the first comment labeled "Highlighted Text"—not the page number. This will select the comment and highlight it in a salmon-pink color.

Scroll down to the last comment you want to delete.

Hold the Shift key (not Ctrl, as many guides incorrectly suggest).

Click on the last "Highlighted Text" comment. All comments between the first and last will now be selected and highlighted.

Press the Delete key to remove them all in one go.

try67

Community Expert

Basically exactly the same as I posted above, 9 years ago... And you can use Ctrl, but it selects one comment at a time. If you use Shift it will select all the items between the first and the second one you click.

E

Essence BC

New Participant

After many mess ups and hours, I finally figured out how to do it.

So first, and to make our lives easier whenever we need to do it again, let's add this tool to our toolbar (this need to be done just once):

Under the 3 dots on your Tollbar, click CUSTOMIZE TOOLBAR
Under Choose Tools to Add, go all the way down to ADD RICH MEDIA
Select the tool SELECT OBJECT and move that to your toolbar using the left arrow/plus sign (if you want you can also reorder your tools on the toolbar using the up and down arrows to make it easier as you wish)
SAVE

Now that this is all done, with the document you want to delete the highlights open, you will see on your toolbar the SELECT OBJECT button, click on it and then select all the area where the highlights to be deleted are, once selected right click on any marked highlighted, then EDIT and DELETE.

Ufffaaaa... I also wish there was an easier way such as the button to Highlight, like Delete Highlight... I hope that helps!

N

NelZion

New Participant

The problem with this option is that it deletes the text as well. I want to remove only the highlight. 😞

NelZion

S

stefanoo8122271Correct answer

New Participant

Hi, you cannot do this in Adobe, and even if you found a way literally every page will have different way in which you can do it that’ll is not applicable to the next page containing highlights. Save yourself a lot of time and stress. Simply Convert/Export the PDF document to a Word document and within Word remove the highlights and then print the document back to a pdf document. Simple 😊

G

gregh59641885

New Participant

Here is an option, print the marked up document as a pdf, in the print dialog box at the bottem, you have the option of selecting it with or without the markups and/or stamps. If you pick the 'document' option it will print it as a pdf without any of your markups. I save it with a name that denotes it as NOT having any markups.

M

matt_7159

New Participant

this is the DUMBEST thing ever!!! it should be as simple as a function that says "stop highlighting", delete highlighting, remove highlighting or something like that. I have tried all of these suggestions in this posting and NONE of them work!!! Not like Word ..... engineers at Adobe clearly not as good as Microsoft!!

try67

Community Expert

Do you see the highlights appear under the Comment panel? If not, then they are a part of the static contents of the file and can't be removed with just the free Reader.

try67

Community Expert

Try pressing Ctrl+A while inside the Comments List. If that doesn't work click the first comment and then scroll down to the bottom of the list, hold down Shift and click the last one. That should select all of the comments in between and you'll be able to delete them all at once.